Advances in Mathematical Chemistry and Applications

Mathematical Structural Descriptors of Molecules and Biomolecules: Background and Applications

Pp. 3-23 (21)

Subhash C. Basak

Abstract

Mathematical chemistry or more accurately discrete mathematical chemistry
had a tremendous growth spurt in the second half of the twentieth century and the same
trend is continuing now. This growth was fueled primarily by two major factors: 1)
Novel applications of discrete mathematical concepts to chemical and biological
systems, and 2) Availability of high speed computers and associated software whereby
hypothesis driven as well as discovery oriented research on large data sets could be
carried out in a timely manner. This led to the development of not only a plethora of
new concepts, but also to various useful applications to such important areas as drug
discovery, protection of human as well as ecological health, and chemoinformatics.
Following the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003, discrete mathematical
methods were applied to the “omics” data to develop descriptors relevant to
bioinformatics, toxicoinformatics, and computational biology. This chapter will discuss
the major milestones in the development of concepts of mathematical chemistry,
mathematical proteomics as well as their important applications in chemobioinformatics
with special reference to the contributions of Basak and coworkers.